Deciding whether to back a company from its entry onto the stockmarket is always a challenging call, especially in such volatile markets. But the group's chief executive Guy Wakeley was positive the prospects of the business would see its shares well supported.
"The balance we have got to strike is how the business is performing against the market conditions,” he said.
The group raised £390m in gross proceeds - the amount it hoped - with £315m coming via the market. Readers may have noted this latter figure is less than the £350m management originally said would be raised via institutional and retail investors upon flotation.
However, the chief executive said Equiniti’s largest shareholder, US private equity group Advent International, wanted to increase its contribution to £75m in order to reduce dilution of its holding.
At its listing earlier this week, the offer price was set at 165p a share and Equiniti’s total market capitalisation upon flotation was £495m.
Shares will be available to retail investors through a minimum subscription of £1,000 via Saga and Beaufort Securities, as well as the group's own Shareview and Selftrade platforms. Mr Wakeley said as well as UK institutional and retail investors buying shares, a small number of European and US investors had also bought holdings. The group said it intended to use the money raised to pay down debt and boost investment in its proprietary technology platforms.
Equiniti has three core segments, the largest of which provides administration and payment services to private and public sector pension schemes. Equiniti is also the UK's largest share registrar by representative market capitalisation. That's hardly surprising when you consider the group provides registration services for almost half the FTSE 100.
